Letting Her Down Gently
by Just4FunFiction
Summary: He knew that the girl that pretended to hate him for the past eight years didn't really feel that way. He knew, in fact, that it was quite the opposite. All he wanted was for her to show the real her to the world. He knew, however, that the first step he would have to take for this to be possible... would be the hardest of all...


Helga was up on her bed, listening to music while reading her magazine. It had been a pretty uneventful week. School was out, and had been for two weeks, so there was still another week until they went back. While she had met up with the others a couple of times, it had been a long time since their last real adventure.

And considering how much of an adventure it had been, anything would seem boring in comparison. This was the time a few months back, when they all went on a trip to the jungles of San Lorenzo. The whole thing had been a crazy experience, with them getting captured by pirates, saved by a mysterious tribe called the Green-Eyed People, finding a mysterious relic, and to top it all off, she was able to confess her love to Arnold once again, coming so close to giving him another kiss before their friends had found them once again. She never even had the chance to find out how he felt.

"Oh, Arnold," she spoke, dreamily, "how I wish you could feel the same! Your beautiful golden locks that stretch so finely from your head, your emerald eyes that are pools for me to drown myself in, your tender heart that sends mine a flutter! The time that we spent apart was unbearable!" She was referring to how Arnold, after finding his parents in San Lorenzo, stayed there with them for a week before they all returned to Hillwood. She had been in a depressed state for the entire week- so had many of them, but none like she had been. "My heart urges me to find you, hold you close, give you my undying love and devotion, yet my pride forces me to keep it behind a steel prison, casting me away from you behind this cold, metallic exterior! Upon the odd chance I can break free of that, and release my true self through the cracks left behind, fate patches them up and thickens the defences! If only I could-"

"HEY OLGA!" She heard her dad shout, frustratingly interrupting her from her moment of poetic obsession.

"CRIMINY, DAD! HOW HARD IS IT TO SAY HELGA!?" she yelled back, tossing her magazine to the floor.

"WATCH THE TONE, LITTLE LADY! YOU'VE GOT SOMEONE AT THE DOOR, SO GO GET IT! I'M TRYING TO WATCH MY SHOW!"

She huffed. "Must be Phoebe, since she's the only one who tends to come by here."

With a sigh, she got up and began to walk down the stairs, stomping with each step she took. She glanced for a mere second to the kitchen, seeing her mother passed out on the table after one too many 'smoothies'. When she got to the door, she gasped.

"Hey, Helga," they spoke to her.

"Arnold!" she spoke, shocked that the football-headed boy that she had lusted over for eight years was stood at her door. She shook her head wildly, before putting on a scowl. "What are you doing here, football head?"

"I was wondering if I could talk to you about something, but… I'm guessing here isn't the best place to do it." He had a point- her dad practically berated him before he even spoke, thinking he was selling something, and she didn't want him to find anything that showed her obsession for him in her room. "Would you mind going to the pier with me?"

'What could he possibly want to speak about?' she thought, before shrugging. "Eh, I've got nothing better to do."

"Great! Let's go!" So, the two of them began to make their way to the pier. "So, how has your holiday been so far?"

"Okay, I guess. Not much has really happened. You?"

"Pretty much the same. I got another letter from my parents."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, they just arrived at Sydney." When Arnold and his parents got back, they spent a fair amount of time together, and for a couple of months they stayed around, but their jobs as scientists did mean they still needed to travel. Arnold was okay with it this time, because he knew where they were, and he felt confident that they would return soon. "They spent a couple of days in New South Wales examining plant life and collecting samples, before travelling to Sydney to help treat some patients."

"How do I sign my parents up for that?" she scoffed, receiving a frown from Arnold in response.

"Helga, I'm sure they do care about you. They just don't know the best way to show it."

"What do you know? Your parents aren't-" she stopped what she was about to say, knowing that it was going too far, even for her standards. "Never mind, that was wrong of me. Sorry."

Arnold was surprised- it was a rare occasion that Helga G. Pataki ever apologised for anything, and he appreciated it, showing so with a small smile. "It's okay." He looked up. "Oh, we're here." They walked along the pier, occasionally glancing the currently closed stalls, since it was a Sunday and no one really went there. Arnold turned to the water- it was a deep, dark blue, underneath the cloudy grey sky. It wasn't a sky that looked like it was going to rain, but it was not appealing. The occasional wind that blew through sent shivers down the spine, but there wasn't much of a breeze at all. "Do you mind if we sit on the edge while I say this?"

"Huh? Oh, sure." They walked to the edge and sat down, their feet dangling over the water. "So, what's so important you dragged me all the way out here for?"

Arnold took a deep breath. 'Here goes,' he thought. "The truth is, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately." She raised an eyebrow, but allowed him to continue. "I thought back to the FTI incident a couple of times since it happened, and in particular… what you said."

'Oh no!' she mentally panicked. 'He knows it's true!' She decided to play it off, laughing nervously. "What about it? It was gibberish, we both know that!"

"I know we passed it off as 'heat of the moment', but I just don't think it was." He gave her an honest look. "For a while, I thought it might have been, but then… well… there was what happened in San Lorenzo."

"What are you- I mean, what are you-"

"Helga." He put his hand on top of hers, sending electricity through her system, and his eyes met hers. "I don't want you to hide it. I know that you were telling the truth at Future Tech, and I know you were telling the truth after you saved me from falling off that waterfall. All I'm asking is you be honest to me."

"But, Arnold, I am-" his gaze toughened a bit. "I mean, you know that I don't- it's obvious that I-" With each time she attempted to hide the truth, he pressed further, and she was running out of things to say. "I…"

"Helga… it's okay." He held his hands together in his lap. "I think I figured out why you hid it, and I feel really dense for not having figured it out sooner. I thought back to when we first met, and how you first became mean. You were just afraid of people seeing your sensitive side, and people laughing at you because of it. That's why you hid it by pretending to hate me." His lips curled up into a small smile. "And yet, despite this, there were moments when you would show me that side, the real you. The bully persona is an exterior, and deep inside, I see someone who is creative, intelligent and caring." He turned his smile to her. "I think that when you try to be, you can be a really amazing person. Like the time you comforted me when Lila turned me down, and when you tried to prove to me that Summer was using me. And I'm pretty certain that Phoebe would agree that the real you isn't Helga G. Pataki, the girl who pushes people aside to get what she wants, but the Helga that I see."

She felt herself welling up inside. She wasn't used to such compliments, and because they came from Arnold, she knew they were genuine. Other than Phoebe, he was the only person she would believe such kind words from. She felt tears trying to force themselves out, but she held them back.

Eventually, she gave a dry laugh, then spoke up. "… I guess there's no point in resisting any more." She turned to him again. "Yes, Arnold. I love you, and have loved you ever since you held your umbrella over me that day we met, eight years ago. I've kept the bow that I'm wearing right now all that time, simply because you said you liked it. What was the reason again, it 'matched my pants'?" They both laughed fondly at the memory. "And you're right. If people saw the real me, I fear that they would laugh, just like they did all those years ago, so I put up a false front. I pushed others before they pushed me, and unfortunately, that meant I had to push you even further, because you were the closest one to me. I mainly kept Phoebe as my best friend because she understood, and she never laughed."

"But, I never laughed either."

"I know you didn't… and that made it so much harder." Ironically, it was getting harder for her to hold back the tears. "All these years, I've kept my feelings for you hidden from most, only releasing through my poetry, speaking to the locket I've kept of you, and the occasional shrine. I even dressed up as your French pen pal, just to be able to go out with you."

"Wait. That was you?"

She lightly laughed. "Guess you're still a little dense. I know it's weird, but it helped me to cope." She felt herself shaking a little, but she fought on. "I have wanted on so many occasions to show my real self, and be open with you, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. My big, forceful, stupid pride stopped me. If there is one thing I get from my dad, it's bullheadedness. I just knew that if I let the real me show, I would get hurt, especially since I felt like you would shoot me down." She hiccupped from how emotional she was becoming. "Just like you're going to do now." He grimaced as she said that. "Yeah, I kind of figured that this was where it was leading. You've spoken so caringly that it could only mean you were going to shoot me down or return my affection, and based on your tone, it can only be the former. I know this is going to hurt like hell, but I need you to just get it over with."

For a moment, they were silent. Arnold was staring down at the water, looking at his reflection, while Helga was tensing up, waiting for the inevitable heartbreak. She knew it was a matter of seconds before she heard the words that would bring her the most intense pain she had ever felt. Arnold took a deep breath, and…

"I'm so sorry." These were the magic words that made her stop fighting back, and she allowed her tears to flow free. "I can't lie to you, and I can't keep you guessing and blindly hoping. I need to be honest to you, for both of our sakes. I don't feel the same way about you, no." He felt his own tears flowing. "It hasn't been easy for me to accept this, because you've shown me nothing but devotion and care, in your own way. You're a truly incredible person, hidden within a fake outer shell, and I can't feel the way you feel about me because of it. I want to be friends with you, though. The REAL you. If you had shown me that side of you this whole time, then maybe we would feel the same way. Heck, if you show me the real you, I will be your friend no matter what, and I may grow fonder of you." He wiped away the tears with his thumb, but they were instantly replaced by new tears. "It hurts to have to say this- nowhere near as much as it must to hear, I can assume, but it hurts all the same. I don't want to be the one who hurts you, but I just know that if I had waited any longer, the pain would have been much worse for both of us. I should have told you how I really felt back at Future Tech, because it would have been so much easier on us both. I'm a jerk for leaving it this long, and I can understand if from now on, you actually DO hate me, but I do want to be friends with the real you. That is, if you can trust me enough to show it."

He didn't know what else to say, so he just sat there in silence, listening to her sob. Looking down, he saw her tears falling into the water causing ripples to blur their reflections. While a weight was lifted from his shoulders, his heart was still burdened as he waited for her to speak.

'Damn you, fate,' she cursed, 'I knew this day would come, but still you drive your sword into my heart.'

She gulped back her sobs as she turned to him, and gently, she said, "thank you."

He blinked, thinking he misheard her, before he turned to her. "What?"

"I said thank you. Thank you for telling me now rather than later. I could never hate you, you beautiful, football-headed geek. I had a feeling this would come for a while, but I was still unprepared… and yet I still love you all the same. Despite the difficulty of your situation, you still try and ease me down. I don't know if my feelings will ever go away, and I'm almost certain you will never return them, but I feel as though the pain I'm feeling now is what I need to move forward. Whether that means moving on from you entirely, or finding a better way to show you my feelings, I do not know. But I do know that I admire how much courage and compassion you have shown for doing this. It will take time for me to heal, and for the remainder of this school holiday, I would appreciate it if we don't see each other."

"Helga-"

"No, Arnold. I know you mean well, and as much as I care about you, it is for the best. I need separation for me to repair my broken heart. But you are not a horrible person. In fact, you are the kindest person that anyone will ever know, because no one else would have stepped up and shown the honesty you have right here. Most of the guys we know would probably act distant and hope that the girl 'gets the hint'. When we see each other again, things won't be exactly normal, and if you really want, then I'll try and show you the real me. It won't be easy, but if it means having you as a friend, then I will try."

He gulped, nodding. "I'm sorry that I had to do this."

She laughed lightly, placing her hand on top of his. "Don't be. You did the right thing, just like you always do. Just remember one thing."

"What's that?"

"A girl can still hope." Without even half a second of hesitation, she pulled him forward, pressing her lips against his. Much like their previous kisses, it was long and passionate, except this time, they both felt the sadness in each other's hearts. Arnold couldn't bring himself to kiss her back- it would have been wrong to do so, and she knew it too, so when she let go, she didn't hate him for not kissing back, nor did she regret trying. "Goodbye, Arnold."

With that, she took off. He sat there, watching as she began to walk away. He noticed that the skies actually had began to rain as she did, but he felt like the rain was heavier in his heart than on his body as the dejected girl that admired him so deeply walked away. He knew she was right when she said he did the right thing, but it still hurt. He couldn't pretend to love her, but letting her down put a great strain on him, and despite not being the one in love, a part of his heart broke as well, despite his attempts to let her down gently.

"I'm sorry, Helga…" he spoke, despite knowing she would not hear him.

* * *

A knock at the door caught Phoebe's attention. She had been about to begin reading a book, but she instead walked down the stairs. "Hello?" she asked as she opened the door, only to gasp at seeing Helga stood there, soaking wet from the rain and the tears still flowing from her eyes. Her body was shaking, and her eyes were fixated on the ground. "Helga! You must be freezing, come in!" She quickly ushered her friend in from the rain, closing the door. "What are you doing out here?" It was then she noticed the tears, and she grew concerned. "Helga, is something wrong?"

"It's over, Pheebs," she flatly, emotionlessly explained. "My chances of getting Arnold… there aren't any."

"What do you mean?"

She swallowed hard as she struggled to bring out the next sentence. "He… told me…" Phoebe didn't need to hear anything else, and instead pulled her friend into a hug. Despite her clothes being soaking wet, Helga felt a warmth from her friend. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Helga, you're more important than anything else right now! You're my best friend, and I will be a shoulder for you to cry on. If there is anything you need, just tell me."

Helga let out a dry laugh- she felt an irony in saying what she was about to.

"Do you have any ice cream?"

THE END


End file.
